Fighting Fantasy Author Ian Livingstone Honoured With Order Of The British Empire

If you’ve ever read a Fighting Fantasy book, dabbled with a Games Workshop product or enjoyed a game from Eidos, then the name Ian Livingstone should be familiar to you. It it’s not, well, it will be now, as Livingstone has been named in 2012′s New Year Honours List.

Livingstone is being made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), according to a story by the BBC. He joins several other names in the games business to be entered into the Order, including Peter Molyneux, Rebellion co-founder Jason Kingsley and Codemasters founders David and Richard Darling.

As you can imagine, he’s pretty chuffed with the appointment. From the BBC:

“I’m genuinely humbled to get something … My life has been all about games, and I think we learn an awful lot through play.

“Writing Fighting Fantasy books with Steve Jackson in the 1980s seemed to have got a whole generation of children reading again. And I’m delighted that what we created not just manifested itself in interactive books but it’s actually inspired people to join the computer games industry.”

He’s spot on about his work being an inspiration. While I didn’t sacrifice animals to a wax bust carved in his image during my formative years, I have no doubt reading Fighting Fantasy adventures and tinkering with Warhammer RPGs and tabletop games planted a few seeds in my head… seeds that eventually led to me embarking on a career as an indie developer.